The campaign of Republican first selectman candidate Jim Marpe conceded recently its staff has written letters endorsing Marpe, which supporters have then put their names on and submitted to local news outlets.

The Marpe campaign said Wednesday it routinely reviews and revises endorsement letters to its liking, then returns them to supporters for submission as letters to the editor.

The issue came to light last week when the Westport News questioned the authenticity of a letter endorsing Marpe, and the local businessman who submitted the letter said it was not written by him, but by Republican Dewey Loselle, a Representative Town Meeting member and a Marpe campaign lieutenant.

Westport News Editor Jim Doody called the practice "highly deceptive" and said it corrupts the integrity of the letters columns. It has been the newspaper's policy not to publish any election letter if it is known to have been written by a campaign, but signed by an individual citizen, or if a campaign has revised the letter, he said.

Marpe on Wednesday said there was "no deception" and called the ghost-writing of endorsement letters "common practice."

"I know it's common practice in campaigns -- as long as I can remember -- to provide assistance to those who request it," he said.

Marpe said some individuals will "ask us to help them draft a letter, but in all cases, the letters represent the person."

Others in Marpe's campaign also called the practice common, but when asked to name other candidates who do it, they were silent.

The businessman whose submission brought the issue to light, local retailer Bill Mitchell, said Marpe personally arranged to have Loselle write the letter and introduced them.

In an interview Wednesday, Mitchell said there was nothing improper about putting his name on a letter written by the Marpe campaign, and he likened it to presidents and other officials using speech writers.

Mitchell said the letter he submitted to the Westport News was "99 percent" written by Loselle, but that he "100 percent agreed with it."

"We have never done that," Ezzes said. "Democrats are very verbal and very literate. If someone is passionate about a candidate, they do it on their own."

Ezzes said supporters often ask how they can help with the campaign.

"We tell them we have an active phone bank," he said. And if they feel strongly about a certain issue, we tell them "feel free to write" a letter to the editor about it.

"But we don't tell them what to write," Ezzes said.

Doody said the prospect of campaigns handling letters before they are submitted "casts a shadow of doubt" on the authenticity of all endorsement letters." Because of that and what he called "a runaway volume" of letters, the Westport News will no longer print every letter.

Jim Simon, founder of Fairfield University's journalism program and associate dean of its college of arts and sciences, said "no one should be shocked" that campaigns are ghost-writing campaign letters.

He said newspapers should make sure its letters to the editor are accurate, and if it knows a letter was not written by the person who signed it, the paper shouldn't run it.

"They can't be blindly printing things," he said.

Loselle, who coordinates letter-writing for Marpe's campaign, said he wrote "a couple" of endorsement letters for supporters, but could not say exactly how many. He also said he could not quantify how many letters he had revised before they were sent to editors.

"Some people have less letter-writing skills," Loselle said. Others, he said, ask about the style or length of the letter.

The Westport News has published its campaign letters policy -- including length and other requirements and how to submit them -- in every print edition since August and also has frequently posted the policy on its website.